Brainstorm

Nokia has few applications under open source licence such as Modest and application manager. Now, as case with Modest by the time of creation of this text, there are a few critical bugs/issues which affect a large amount of people. The fixis available in the source code but updated version of the package is not released until Nokia releases a full update. The lead time could be couple of months and the release times are never annouced beforehand.

Due to the delay, many active people notice the same bugs and go to bugzilla. Sometimes they do notice the existing report and write their own - this causes many duplicated bug reports to appear. Sometimes the bug is already fixed internally. A lot of effort is wasted thereby with the delayed bugfix release and redundant work. Delays and redundant work creates frustration. Additionally, the software may be unusable for many months when it could be fixed now. Talented individual frustrated enough might roll up their own update, but if 10 people do it for themselves this is clearly again a lot more wasted effort and time.

Delay is therefore bad for user experience and can make the whole device look bad in the eye of frustrated people. This is definitely a lost position for marketing efforts when fast bugfix releases would be a positive element for consumer mind.

Solutions for this brainstorm

Solution #1: Fork the OSS source

As Nokia does not release updated versions in time, the community should do it by releasing parallel package with bugfixes. For example, Modest by Nokia would be in standard firmware release but the fixed version would be in extras with label reModest - re for released.. Alternatively, a separate repository could be created (cheers, Marcin :). This way there would not be any delay by the Nokia approval and release machine.

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Solution #2: Independent applications

Instead of monolithic releases, all or nothing, have individual independent updates to applications when they are ready to release. The OSS applications should be independent even if Nokia supported. They should follow their own bugfix needs and release schedules. At least follow "release early, release often" with the OSS part of Maemo even if the closed core can not do that.

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Solution #3: Separate bugfixes from development

Most of the linux distributions release frequent bugfix package updates. The development and bugfixing should be possible in separate tracks, so bugfixes are not tied with new features. Thus, new features do not need to be released before they are ready.

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Solution #4: Provide your own line of SSU

If you want your own updates, set up your own SSU, it is entirely possible and is what is being done in Community SSU for Diablo. Make a repository with daily builds of openly developed software (maemo.gitorious.org, etc). Chances are you will run into a dead end once next SSU comes out and you'll have to rebase on a fresh image. That's the cost of bleeding edge.

Alternative is providing an alternate SSU that only upgrades certain fixes instead of daily builds which may work better with SSUs.